California, police who were confronting the “occupy Oakland” demonstrators.
Kayvan Sabeghi says he wasn’t even in the demonstration but was just trying to get home to his apartment. He said police would not let him through to his building and then started beating him.
He was operated on Thursday for a lacerated spleen.
Sabeghi, 32, is a veteran of the Iraqi war. He was the second veteran to be injured by Oakland police in the past week during their efforts to confront the Occupy Oakland movement. That has aroused complaints from a number of vets groups around the country.
Sabeghi said he had joined the Occupy Oakland demonstration last Wednesday, then left and gone out to dinner with a friend. Around midnight, he said he was headed home when he found a police line blocking his way to his apartment house in the next block.
“They lined up in front of me,” he said. “I was talking to one of them, saying, ‘Why are you doing this?’ when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me,” he said.
He was placed in a police van for three hours before being jailed where he began to suffer serious pain and pleaded for help.
Brian Kelly, a co-owner with Sabeghi of a microbrewery-restaurant, said it was 18 hours before Sabeghi got medical treatment. The Oakland police and Alameda County Sheriff’s office did not comment on the allegations.
Sabeghi left the US Army in 2007 and now shares ownership of a microbrewery and restaurant in El Cerrito, about 10 miles north of Oakland.
Sabeghi was one of about 100 “occupy” protesters arrested that day in Oakland.
The Iranian media continue to give extensive coverage to the “occupy” movements across the United States, saying they are a rebellion against the US government destined to bring about its collapse and the end of liberal democracy in America.